


just one dance!

by TheDragonLover



Series: Tumblr Requests [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other, Underfell Grillby (Undertale), Underfell Sans (Undertale), if you could go back in time, reader's gender is ambiguous, written for request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-07-07 17:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonLover/pseuds/TheDragonLover
Summary: Grillby doesn't often get chances like these. He's going to make the most of it, in his own way.---For a request to write for Underfell Grillby, using a prompt.





	just one dance!

It was just another day at his bar, starting as most did. Open up, serve customers, kick out the trash. It had its pleasant moments, its unsavory ones, and… the utterly, mind-numbingly boring stretches in-between.

Sans was as “clever” as always, nearly getting himself thrown out with every smart-ass remark he made. If he wasn’t a friend of the bartender and owner of the place,  _someone_  would’ve smacked him. As it was, Grillby kept glowering. The last comment he made before finally falling silent was when you walked through the door.

“Heh. Don’t  _you_  look nice?”

You did. Not that Grillby would agree out loud, to Sans of all people. The glass he had been polishing  _clinked_  on the counter in warning, and the skeleton finally stopped with a chuckle. You were used to the shenanigans of the regulars, hardly fazed by Grillby’s crackling. It almost made him angrier when you ignored him to make a beeline to the jukebox. It was functioning, if only because you were too stubborn to leave it sitting there broken. You said the place could use some music, to “liven up a little!”

Grillby shot another glare at Sans, predicting the snort. “ _Don’t,_ ” he hissed. His quota for stupidity was at its limit.

Then the jukebox was playing a rather upbeat song, and you were saying something about “old but gold.” What were you swaying about for? Spinning around, you grabbed a bird monster from his seat, ignoring his squawking to argue with him. Really? You were trying to get them all to  _dance?_ One of the more bizarre examples of your spontaneity.

But you were human, and humans are, if nothing else, determined. You proved this in how you wheedled and cajoled and heckled and coaxed almost the entire place to humor you, until the bar was full of monsters flailing and jiving. You had even convinced Grillby not to snap at the others for moving tables out of the way for a makeshift dance floor. Were you using some sort of magic to accomplish this? Who really knew, with you?

It was as he was wiping down the end of the counter that you finally approached him, having convinced all but two to join your silliness. His face was already drawn up into a scowl, but you still held out your hand and gave a smile, and a question. Would he dance with you?

“Yeah, right,” Sans muttered.

And true to form, Past Grillby refused with a scoff, turning back to his cleaning. He watched from his peripherals as you shrugged and sauntered off, trying and failing to get the skeleton off of his seat as well. The evening was different, certainly, but he had to clean up quite a few messes from all of those drunken idiots.

But, with new knowledge and his own determination, Future Grillby used this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the past, given to him through mysterious and ultimately unexplainable means… to accept the offered hand and watch how bright you became. Wasting such a reality-altering ability on a simple thing was absolutely worth it. Leaving Sans speechless was just icing on the cake.

In this alternate timeline, Grillby let you drag him into the crowd, although they wisely parted once they noticed the owner of the bar was among them. Any odd looks the two of them earned were warned off by snapping flames, or by your shooing gestures.

The jukebox clicking over to a new track about shaking tail feathers—a bizarre song for a human to write, surely—made you laugh as if hearing an old friend. Then you grabbed his arm to tug him closer. He found the thin line of his mouth quirking as you tried to show him the same dance moves you’d explained to the others. No one else there was following your instructions that well, adjusting for their anatomy or level of intoxication. Grillby was the only one who actually stood a chance of doing them right—which of course he did, to your surprise and delight.

Originally finding it all rather ridiculous, he could now admit that this kind of activity was… acceptable. As long as it didn’t happen in his bar every night. But he told you after a few songs that he was going to make this into a weekly thing, now that the jukebox functioned properly. After all, it meant he’d have a reason to dance with you.

Your expression in response to his words is satisfying, but not nearly enough. He’s got his work cut out for him in the weeks ahead, which was why he chose this point in particular to go back to. Have to make up all of that time, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @darkdiva94 on tumblr, using a prompt from @WordsNStuff's January 2018 prompts: If you had to go back in time to change one event in your life, what would you choose?
> 
> If you want to put in a request for more of this (or with different characters), or for something new, throw an ask at my writing blog, @thatdragonsdrabbles.


End file.
